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St
Ethelbert, Burnham Sutton (Burnham Market)

The modern town of
Burnham Market is an amalgam of three historic parishes,
Burnhams Sutton, Ulph and Westgate. St Ethelbert was the
parish church of Sutton, and sat about 400 metres south
of the green in the centre of Burnham Market, beside the
road to Fakenham.

The
Parishes of Sutton and Ulph were united under one Priest
in the 15th century - probably, the two villages had
already grown into each other by then. However, this
state of affairs virtually guaranteed that resources
would become rather stretched once the Reformation turned
them into preaching houses.

In the
middle of the 18th century, both churches had, in common
with many in East Anglia, fallen into disrepair. Their
Rector, the go-ahead young Edmund Nelson, who just
happened to be the father of Horatio, oversaw the
demolition of St Ethelbert and the use of its materials
to repair All Saints, Burnham Ulph.

What
survives are the walls of the aisle-less nave to a height
of half a metre or so, and the tower walls to about a
metre. Curiously, the tower was built within the body of
the earlier nave, as at Thurton in east Norfolk.
The chancel is now lost beneath the adjacent road. The
tower remains were higher, but were thought to be
dangerous in 1966 and reduced. For a long time after, the
site was allowed to become overgrown, and mostly
disappeared, but it was all cut back and dug out by the
admirable Burnham Market Society in the early 1990s, and
is now maintained beautifully.

It is a
satisfying ruin. You can see where everything was, and
you can even step over the threshold of the south doorway
as your ancestors might have done.

On the
ground to the south is the village hall, and we were
lucky enough to find the weekly farmers market in
progress. As you may know, Burnham Market is now one of
the poshest towns in Christendom, a kind of
Islington-sur-mer, but the market was extraordinarily
good value. Presumably there's quite a mark-up when these
same foods appear on the menus of bistros in Chelsea and
Canary Wharf. I was also delighted to discover from one
of the stall holders that locals still call this place St
Albert's Corner.